Tales of Monkey Island Episode 2

SCORE: 70

Tales of Monkey Island
Siege of Spinner Cay is the second installment of the five chapter
series. It features the same characters and witty humor as all the
Monkey Island games before it. The price tag for the complete series is
a reasonable $35. As of this review, only the first two chapters are
available, with a new chapter being released every month.

I highly recommend playing the first chapter in this series before
playing this game since the story builds from chapter one: Launch of the
Screaming Narwhal. This games starts off with Guybrush sailing towards
his wife's whereabouts when the pirate hunter Morgan LeFlay catches up
to him and takes his pox ridden hand from him and brings it back to the
crazy doctor the Marquis De Singe. With a hook in its place, Guybrush is
re-united with his wife at Jerkbait Islands, the home of the MerFolk.
The MerFolk know where to find the cure for the pox that's infecting all
the pirates, but you have to locate their three ancient artifacts so
they can do the ritual. Not too surprisingly, you're not the only one
hunting for the artifacts. Use your wits and skill to find a cure for
the pox.

This is an adventure style game where you have to examine your
surroundings, grab and manipulate objects, talk to people, and solve
some tricky puzzles. To move around you use your standard WASD keys and
the mouse is used for everything else. To explore the different islands,
you just point to your desired location on a map. The two main modes of
transportation are your ship and a raft provided by the MerFolk as long
as you have your transit pass.

One of the Islands has a jungle on it, but it's not a maze like the one
on Flopsum Island. In fact, there's a lot of dead ends so it's pretty
hard to get lost. You'll be re-united with LeChuck your former nemesis
and you'll have to work together to retrieve one of the artifacts.
LeChuck wants to solve part of the ancient riddle but he's lacking the
mental power to solve the simple puzzle on his own. Guybrush will give
step by step directions and it's funny to give him wrong item
combinations such as telling him to use a stick or a breath mint on
himself. As usual, Guybrush has some witty remarks and insults. The
humor can push the limits sometimes so I don't recommend it for young
children. There are some innuendos and cartoonlike violence (hand
getting cut off).

This game's colorful world and cartoon like feel is very charming and
get's my kids attention if they catch me playing it. There's a lot of
detail and you can usually spot which objects you can take or manipulate
in some fashion. The user interface is pretty easy to navigate and the
inventory management system is easy to use. When talking to the MerFolk
chieftain it's a little hard to get to the exit. One glitch noticed was
a stuck canon ball floating in mid-air.

Some of the puzzles are easy to solve and there are some tricky ones
too. Fortunately there's a handy walkthough on gamefaqs.com that got me
out of a couple of stumpers. I thought the first chapter was short and
was disappointed to find that this installment is even shorter! I was
able to beat this chapter in a two or three sittings. Hopefully, with
all five chapters, you'll get your money's worth though. The treasure
hunt add-on is only available by launching the first chapter's
executable.

The voice acting is top notch and the background music is fitting too.
The sound effects are pretty good as well. Overall though this game is
well polished and will not disappoint.

For adventure gamers that love funny adventure games be sure to check
out this series. It looks pretty promising and you'll get a few laughs
for sure. The humor may be a bit off key at times, so please take that
into consideration. This adventure is available on the PC and Nintendo
Wii.
- Cheryl Gress

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